Sotheby’s Makes a Return to Irish Art Market

Sotheby’s revived the Irish art category and were able to get some strong sales for both historical Irish art and recent works like Rowan Gillespie’s sculpture. The sale total was only £1.8m with 63% of the lots sold. A William Orpen nude failed to sell with an estimate comparable to the top lot:

The top-selling item, John Lavery’s oil painting Japanese Switzerland, sold for £509,000 (€692,599) to a private collector. It was most recently on loan to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin.

Three paintings by Jack Butler Yeats were among the most expensive in the 71-lot sale, the dearest being The Talkers, which went for £209,000 (€284,387).

Dubliner Rowan Gillespie’s bronze sculpture, When Hope and History Rhyme, set an auction record when it went for £161,000 (€219,074). It had a top estimate of £30,000 (€40,810).